Pest-house is what our country is rapidly becoming. Indeed I am not entirely sure that it does not already deserve that name. If it does not, at least it is so infested with the germs of virulent diseases that its doors should be closed until every suspected inmate is thoroughly fumigated. And that operation will consume several years. The evening before leaving New York, while at dinner in the Woman’s City Club, I talked over the subject with a woman lawyer. “You wouldn’t even let in the relatives of those immigrants already in this country?” she questioned disapprovingly. “I would not,” I replied, and my tone was emphatic. “Well, I don’t see just how you could do that,” she protested, and her disapproval had become near to indignation. “Just three hows: I’m an American and believe in America first; I’m not a sentimentalist; I’m not an employer of cheap labor.” “But it’s not sentimentality—allowing an immigrant to bring in his wife and children, or his mother and father,” she assured me. “Isn’t it? How about a smallpox epidemic? I’ve been pretty near two or three. I never heard of an uninfested community begging that near relatives be allowed to pass through the quarantine for the sake of coming to them.” “But that’s different—smallpox,” she contradicted, as resting her elbows on the table she brought the tips of her perfectly manicured finger-nails together that she might admire them at her leisure. “You’re an alarmist, my dear. I’ve been practising in New York for—for a good many years now. I’m sure if conditions were so bad I would have known about it before this.” In my diary I recorded the history of one hundred and thirty-seven children—cases investigated for Bellevue social service department—every one of them the children of foreign parents—both parents. In only three cases the parents could not be classed as paupers. Those three—one was a Finn, a printer; his wife died and he was ill with flu. So soon as he got on his feet he took his baby and offered to pay for what had been done for it. The second was an Italian bootblack, father of five children, whose wife died in Bellevue. He not only willingly assumed the responsibility of his children as soon as they were able to leave the hospital, but politely declined both financial assistance and advice from the social service department.